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Is a Cognitive Revolution in Theoretical Biology Underway?

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Abstract

The foundations of biology have been a topic of debate for the past few decades. The traditional perspective of the Modern Synthesis, which portrays organisms as passive entities with a limited explanatory role in evolutionary theory, is giving way to a new paradigm where organisms are recognized as active agents, actively shaping their own phenotypic traits for adaptive goals. Within this context, this article raises the question of whether contemporary biological theory is undergoing a cognitive revolution. This inquiry can be approached in two ways: from a theoretical standpoint, exploring the centrality of the cognitive sciences in current theoretical biology; and from a historical perspective, examining the resemblance between the current state of theoretical biology and the Cognitive Revolution of the mid-twentieth century. Both inquiries yield affirmative answers, though important nuances will be emphasized. The cognitive sciences’ explanatory framework is employed to elucidate the agentic characteristics of organisms, establishing a clear parallelism between the Cognitive Revolution and the present state of theoretical biology.

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  1. It is good to remember that Darwin did not postulate this genocentric view of natural selection, first because the notion of “genes” was introduced in 1909 by Wilhelm Johannsen, and second because Darwin himself accepted Lamarckian inheritance of some kinds, particularly in his 6th edition of Origin of Species. In this way, the theory of natural selection was developed into the Genetic Theory of Evolution by Neo-Darwinism, but the genocentric view is not a demand of natural selection theory: natural selection can be embedded in a non-gene-centered position about inheritance, variation, and fitness.

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Acknowledgements

I am grateful to Sergio Balari for the discussion of the ideas presented here. The research done here received the support of the National Agency of Investigation and Innovation (Uruguay) through grant PD_NAC_2023_1_176930 and the Sectoral Comision of Scientific Investigation (Uruguay) through grant 22520220100257UD. I also acknowledge funding from grant FFI2017-87699-P for project DALiV and funding from grant PID2019-104576GB-I00 for project Outonomy funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033.

Funding

National Agency of Investigation and Innovation (Uruguay) through grant PD_NAC_2023_1_176930 and the Sectoral Comision of Scientific Investigation (Uruguay) through grant 22520220100257UD.

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    Tiago Rama

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Rama, T. Is a Cognitive Revolution in Theoretical Biology Underway?. Found Sci (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10699-024-09950-3

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